June 29, 2015

They say that time heals all wounds, but
losing Parley, his one true love, left Zach with a hole in his heart that no
one else can fill. After forty-eight blissful hours alone together as teens in
an abandoned house, Parley disappeared. Parley is what he is, and the
pray-away-the-gay camp his parents ship him to won’t change that. However,
finding the balance between accepting his true nature and not losing his family
means tough sacrifices.

Sixteen years later, Zach is
thunderstruck when Parley stands on the front doorstep of his house—the house
that had been their refuge, which Zach restored. But Parley isn’t alone, and
Zach wonders if he’s found Parley only to lose him a second time. If they can
overcome the terrors of the past and the situation of the present, maybe they
can build a new relationship just as Zach rebuilt the house—brick by brick.

Pages or Words: 62,000
words

Categories: Contemporary,
Fiction, Gay fiction, M/M Romance

Excerpt:

ZACH
FELT as if he was floating. He’d been planning this escape for weeks, but now
that it was actually happening, it didn’t seem real. He chanced a quick look at
Parley as they merged onto the highway. What could possibly be better than
running away with his best friend?

He’d
had his doubts that Parley would actually come with him. After being turned
down the first time, Zach had prepared himself for disappointment, but now they
were leaving together and Zach couldn’t have been happier.

“Where
should we go?” Zach asked. He had some vague ideas in mind, but he wanted his
friend’s input more than anything.

“I
don’t know. Somewhere we can’t be found?” Zach was right on board with that.

“That’s
a good idea. We’ll go for a bit on this highway, then we’ll exit and take some
back roads, maybe head toward the interior.”

Parley
dropped his head back against the seat. “Perfect.” After a time, he said, “I
still can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“I
still can’t believe you came with me,” Zach countered.

“I
can’t either. I must be insane.”

“Or
brilliant. It’s usually a fine line,” Zach teased.

“My
parents are going to have an absolute meltdown once they’ve found out what I’ve
done. They’re going to be so upset.”

Parley’s
voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. Zach had seen him like this once
before when he’d thought he’d lost his weird CTR ring with the spinner chain in
the band.

“It’ll
all be okay.” Zach tried to soothe him, to bring him back to the present, and
rested a gentle hand on Parley’s knee. “Everyone flies from the nest sooner or
later. We just did it in an unconventional way. I really do think this is
what’s best, though, for both of us.”

Zach’s reassurance seemed to work.
Parley blinked slowly a few times and then a somewhat disheartened smile crept
onto his face. “I know, but my family is just… different.”

L.J. LaBarthe is a
French-Australian woman, who was born during the Witching Hour, just after
midnight. From this auspicious beginning, she went on to write a prize-winning
short story about Humpty Dumpty wearing an Aussie hat complete with corks
dangling from it when she was six years old. From there, she wrote for her high
school yearbook, her university newspaper, and, from her early teens to her
twenties, produced a fanzine about the local punk rock music scene. She loves
music of all kinds and was once a classical pianist; she loves languages and
speaks French and English and a teeny-tiny smattering of Mandarin Chinese,
which she hopes to relearn properly very soon. She enjoys TV, film, travel,
cooking, eating out, abandoned places, urbex, history, and researching.

L.J.
loves to read complicated plots and hopes to do complex plot lines justice in
her own writing. She writes paranormal, historical, urban fantasy, and
contemporary Australian stories, usually m/m romance and featuring m/m erotica.
She has won a Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention and another award for Best
Historical Gay Novel.

Cate Ashwood wrote her very first
story in a hot-pink binder when she was in the second grade and found her
passion for writing. Her first successful foray into romance writing came five
years later when she wrote her best friend, who was experiencing a case of
unrequited love, her own happily ever after.

Cate’s
life has taken a number of different and adventurous roads. She now lives a stone’s
throw from the ocean, just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia with her
husband, her little boy, and their two cats. Her life is filled with family and
friends, travel, and, of course, books.

Blurb:
Spunky commander Berit Turner is known for two things: his huge
libido and his lack of a filter—he says what he thinks. Berit sets his
mind on being part of a mission to Ligador to make sure the planet is
habitable for humans. He’s ecstatic when his team is assigned to the
task force. A delegation of Nadisc, a humanoid alien race, accompanies
them, and passion ignites between Berit and their commanding officer,
Tom. But Berit is determined that Tom is just another notch on his
bedpost, as he doesn’t do relationships.

The excursion to Ligador goes wrong from the beginning, when they
discover Ligador has been established as a breeding station by their
worst enemy: the Tash’Ba. Dinosaur-like creatures become the team’s
worst nightmare, and staying alive is going to take everything they’ve
got… and then some.

Some
people might call Avery Babineaux a prick. He’s a hedgehog shifter from an
old-money Louisiana family with a penchant for expensive shoes and a reputation
for being a judgmental snob. His attitude is why he and his fated mate are
estranged. Not that Avery cares. He doesn’t want to be mated to some
blue-collar werewolf anyway. Or so he keeps telling himself.

No
werewolf likes to be looked down upon, least of all Dylan Green. He doesn’t
need a mate, especially not some snotty hedgehog who sneers at his custom
motorcycle shop and calls him a grease monkey. But when Avery gets into trouble
with a shady loan shark, Dylan can’t stand by and let him be hurt—whether he
wants the brat or not.

Yet
once Dylan steps into Avery’s world, he realizes there’s more to Avery than his
prickly exterior, and that unexpected vulnerability calls to Dylan’s protective
instincts. The sassy little hedgehog needs a keeper, and despite their horrible
first impressions, Dylan starts to believe he might be the wolf for the job.

Piper
Vaughn wrote her first love story at eleven and never looked back. Since then,
she’s known that writing in some form was exactly what she wanted to do. A
reader at the core, Piper loves nothing more than getting lost in a great
book—fantasy, young adult, romance, she loves them all (and has a two thousand
book library to prove it!). She grew up in Chicago, in an ethnically diverse
neighborhood, and loves to put faces and characters of every ethnicity in her
stories, so her fictional worlds are as colorful as the real one. Above all,
she believes that everyone needs a little true love in their life…even if it’s
only in a book.

Kenzie Cade Bio

Kenzie
Cade was born and raised in the South where she spends her days in the sometimes
stressful field of private medicine observing interesting people and committing
them to memory for later use. When she isn’t reading, experimenting with
recipes, or being distracted by social media, Kenzie spends time with her
family, friends, and the Pomeranian/Long-haired Chihuahua mix who likes to keep
her company while she writes. As a young girl, Kenzie dreamed of princesses and
their white knights. As an adult (or sort of adult), she dreams of princes and
their proverbial white knights, which she attributes the fellow Arkansan S.E.
Hinton and her novel The Outsiders. Writing to keep the fictional voices at
bay, Kenzie enjoys the journeys her characters travel to find their happy
endings, and she loves the challenge of writing a great love story. Contact
Kenzie at kenziecade.author@gmail.com. You can also find her online at her
blog: kenziecade.wordpress.com; on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kenziecade.author;
and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thekenziecade.

Blurb: Twenty-three-year-old, Native
American, Michael Black’s well-ordered life is disrupted one evening when he is
ambushed at the dojo he frequents by a mysterious Japanese youth who goes by
the name of Kiyoshi.

Soon circumstances have the gorgeous teen staying
with Michael at his apartment. The gifted nineteen-year-old is an intriguing
mix of angst, innocence and crafty intelligence, but Michael is honor bound by
a promise to his sensei to keep his distance. Michael tries to keep his desire
in check, but what can he do if the exquisite teen keeps kissing him?

Volume two finds Michael in deep water when, in
trying to help Kiyoshi, he is persuaded by his sensei to participate in a joint
government undercover operation to bring down a Yakuza lord.

Before long Michael is immersed in beautiful men,
martial arts and espionage all to gain the trust and love of Kiyoshi. Secrets,
lies, sex and action combine in this racy, romantic, adventure of two men,
Michael Black and his sensei, Ichiro Kimura, navigating a dangerous path for
true love.

EXCERPT
9: Recon in the lair of Yakuza lord Takeshi Ikeda.

Cocking
his head minutely, the petite blond entered the dark room. He closed the door
and then his eyes. His concentration gifted him with a lucid schematic of the
room and the objects within it. A frown creased his forehead when his eyes
blinked open to peer into the nothingness of pitch-black. Kneeling, he snapped
a small piece of metal from the fine chain about his ankle. He pressed it in a
rapid combination of taps, directed the resulting pinpoint beam of light to the
floor and trod furtively across the room. Using the minuscule device’s light,
he made quick work of the lock on the large desk that dominated the space and
knelt behind it, carefully perusing the contents of the files held within.

Bright
blue eyes intent on his task, his slim fingers efficiently flipped through the
sheets. His ears remained alert to his surroundings even as he scanned and
deciphered the information. A small exhale escaped him when he came upon a
sheet that appeared to be from a food-service distribution company. Noting the
large quantity of foodstuffs on the order, he checked the ship-to address,
committing it to memory.

Quick
fingers replaced the documents and relocked the desk. Moving the source of
light to its

original spot, he rose, carefully opened the door and peered out.
Once certain that he was alone, he quickly traversed the hall heading back to
the bedchamber. He slowed, a snake of caution goose-bumping his forearms as he
spied the bedroom door. He slipped into an adjacent room and looked around
carefully until he found the object he sought. Tucking the item behind his
back, he returned to the hall and then slipped into the dark bedroom. A burst
of light flooded the room and he froze.

“Where
were you?”

Lime-yellow
eyes glared at him. Their suspicious gleam matched the ferocity of their
owner’s voice. Colorful tattoos rippled across one side of the large man’s
muscular chest as he shifted upright in the bed, completing the picture of
imposing menace.

A subtle
change came over the blond. His shoulders bowed, making his petite frame appear
even smaller, more fragile somehow. Dark lashes fluttered over the wide pools
of blue before a ruddy flush bloomed upon his creamy skin. A tendril of desire
trickled through his body and the blond schooled himself to sink into the
feeling rather than recoil as dictated by his mind. His honey-coated voice
stuttered in his eagerness to answer.

Alex A. Akira is the
author of the yaoi romance series Dojo Boys, racy tales of young, male martial
artists navigating some unorthodox and adventurous paths to find love. The
Deluxe two-volume box set of Dojo Boys: Dragon and Crow are available at
Amazon.